We provide an overview of the integration of refugees into the labor markets of a number of high-income countries. Discussing the ways in which refugees and economic migrants are differently selected and so might be expected to perform differently in a host country’s labor market, we examine employment and wages for these groups over time … Continue reading
Most refugees live in developing countries of asylum, struggling to prove themselves in economies which are unable to absorb and make full use of their labour market potential. As a result, their skills often remain unused and become obsolete over time. Key challenges for Europe include sharing the global responsibility for refugees fairly with major … Continue reading
The number of people fleeing war, persecution and conflict exceeded 70 million in 2018. This is the highest level that UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has seen in its almost 70 years. Data from UNHCR’s annual Global Trends report, released today, shows that almost 70.8 million people are now forcibly displaced. To put this in … Continue reading
Canada welcomed over 830,000 refugees from 1980 to 2009. Although not selected for economic reasons, the success of refugees in the labour market is an essential element of their long-term integration into Canadian society. A new Statistics Canada study finds that the labour market outcomes of refugees from 13 countries varied considerably over the last three decades. To date, little information has … Continue reading
Faced with absorbing vast numbers of asylum seekers who headed to Europe during the 2015-16 migration crisis and the ongoing arrival of much smaller, but steady flows of Central Americans at the U.S.-Mexico border, EU Member States and the United States in 2018 took or explored steps to narrow asylum and harden policies. Some moves, … Continue reading
The number of refugees resettled in the U.S. decreased more than in any other country in 2017. That year the U.S. resettled 33,000 refugees, the lowest total since the two years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and a steep drop from 2016. Non-U.S. countries resettled more than twice as many refugees as the … Continue reading
Refugees can be immense economic contributors to the host communities where they settle. However, to maximize their contributions and achieve improved well-being and self-reliance, refugees need formal labor market access. But this access is often limited, especially in developing countries. Even where the law allows refugees to access formal employment, administrative and practical barriers often limit … Continue reading
This report explores procedures for recognition and validation of qualifications and skills for refugees in a number of European countries. Recognition and validation are important elements of qualification systems that can contribute to labour market integration of refugees, migrants and local citizens. Qualifications Frameworks can serve as a useful tool for the assessment of qualifications … Continue reading
First session: “Opportunities for better labour market integration: Lessons from national experiences” During the session presentations of experiences from three Member States were delivered and discussed: Austria, Sweden and Germany. All the three countries are facing challenges of integrating refugees, even if the number of asylum applicants has substantially decreased since the peak year of … Continue reading
The Swedish asylum system—long one of the most efficient and generous in the world—faced an unprecedented challenge in the fall of 2015. As the number of refugees and migrants arriving in Sweden surged, processing times for asylum applications grew and emergency housing reached capacity. Schools struggled to enroll young newcomers, who made up nearly half … Continue reading
This paper analyses the individual driving factors of refugees’ and family migrants’ labour market performance, using an ordinal logistic regression model. In a basic model, their employment rate is being regressed against the main socio-demographic characteristics (sex, age, education), before a supplementary model includes other information (years of residence, language skills and information about parents) … Continue reading
Asylum decisions in the EU EU Member States granted protection to more than 700 000 asylum seekers in 2016. Over half of the beneficiaries were Syrians. The 28 Member States of the European Union (EU) granted protection status to 710 400 asylum seekers in 2016, more than double the number of 2015. In addition to … Continue reading
Since the fall of 2015, refugee resettlement in Canada has risen dramatically as the Trudeau government committed itself to admitting at least 25,000 Syrian refugees—a goal accomplished by the end of February 2016. As Canada expands its resettlement efforts, ensuring the labor-market integration and self-sufficiency of these new arrivals is a major challenge. Refugees in … Continue reading
In 2015 and 2016, an estimated total of 1.2 million people arrived in Germany to ask for asylum. Although Germany had already experienced large inflows of asylum seekers in the early 1990s, the current situation is different not only in its scale, but also because many asylum seekers come from countries where the perspective of … Continue reading
The U.S. admitted 84,995 refugees in the fiscal year ending in September 2016, the most in any year during the Obama administration. An additional 31,143 refugees have been admitted to the U.S. from Oct. 1 through Jan. 24, including more than 1,136 refugee admissions since Trump became president on Jan. 20. Though refugee admissions would … Continue reading